Islam OnlineStrongly Islamist, generally supports the government of Sudan. Know the other side..

Al-Ahram WeeklyFrom the editor: "providing as honest and objective a look at contemporary Egyptian and Arab reality as possible -- as seen through Egyptian and Arab eyes."

Sudan - News and Analysis by Eric ReevesBy far the best independent analysis of the developing situation--and usually much more pessimistic than official accounts. Also usually proves to be more accurate.

The Passion of the Present (the essay)

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In Darfur, a region in western Sudan approximately the size of Texas, over a million people are threatened with torture and death at the hands of marauding militia and a complicit government. Genocide evokes not only the moral, but also, the legal responsibility of the world community. Under international agreement, a nation must intervene to stop a genocide when it is officially acknowledged.

"Officially" is the key word here. So far, no nation in the international community has "officially" acknowledged the truth: Sudan is a bleeding ground of genocide. In this void, the Sudanese government continues to act with brutal impunity.

Thankfully, there are individuals working
in human rights organizations who are watching - and witnessing - and organizing, in support of the victims in Darfur. These individuals represent,
for all of us, a personal capacity to bear witness to the passion
of the present; one candle lit against the darkness.

However, before one can light a candle,
someone has to strike a match:
a donation to any of the human rights organizations active in Sudan, contacting your government representative, local newspaper, radio and t.v. station. Our individual activism is essential for the candlepower of witness to overcome and extinguish the firepower of genocide.

This world has long endured wars that take lives. Let us be part of one that saves them.

About: The Passion of the Present site is a totally non-profit labor of love and hope - in peace. Thanks for joining the effort.

About this blog

Our name comes from an essay entitled "The Passion of the Present" that one of our grassroots founders wrote and circulated by email in March of 2004. The blog started at the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School.

The editors are semi-anonymous in order to keep the focus on Sudan. This site is a resource for a blog-based information community now numbering several hundred interlinked bloggers and sites. Visitors come from around the world. Daily traffic ranges from just under a thousand visitors, to more than eight thousand on days when news attention peaks.

Our technology cost for a public blog service, with no special discount, is still just $13.46 per month! Start a blog if you don't have one already!

As more humanitarian organizations leave Darfur, where violence also includes them, more of the victims of the genocide are children. In an Oct. 7 report on the reliable Sudan Tribune Web site, the United Nations Children's Fund estimates that each day in Darfur, 80 children under the age of five die. As the United Nations spins useless resolutions, more children will perish. But, in late September, the Senate, under pressure, removed an important section of the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act.

As previously passed by the House with wide bipartisan support and now signed by the president, the bill blocked assets and froze visas of anyone connected with mass murders and rapes of black African Muslims.

But what Sen. Richard Lugar, Indiana Republican -- chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- removed from the Senate version was a section in the House bill that protected the right of our individual states (six already, with more on the way) to divest public pension funds from international companies doing business in murderous Sudan.

Successfully lobbying against this provision was the National Foreign Trade Council, representing more than 300 multinational companies, some of whom eagerly do business with Sudanese President Lt. Gen. Omar Bashir, the architect of this genocide, which has not killed as many as Hitler's Holocaust. But the willingness of international corporations to profit from the dealings with the Hitler of Africa reminds me of a magazine headline I saw in the late 1930s: "Would you do business with Hitler?"

Also opposing individual state divestments is the National Association of Manufacturers. In the Sept. 27 issue of The Hill, Bill Primosch, that organization's director of international business policy, dismissed state divestment laws as not having "a practical impact; it becomes a symbolic gesture." And another lobbyist crowed of the removal of this section of the House bill: "It is a big win."

The biggest winner, the National Foreign Trade Council (which is suing the state of Illinois on its divestment law) claims, moreover, that individual states have no right to interfere with national foreign policy. (The Bush administration did not object to the stripping of the House bill on this issue.)

However, years ago, during the debate on state divestments against South Africa's apartheid regime, Gerald Warburg, on the staff of California Sen. Alan Cranston, said: "The bottom line is that local authorities already have a clear legal right and moral obligation to exercise discretion in how they invest their own money."

And California Rep. Barbara Lee, a Democrat -- and a determined prime mover in the states' and national divestment campaigns -- emphasizes: "Concern about the constitutionality of state divestment campaigns is just a smokescreen to cover for efforts by the financial-services industry to quietly kill a divestment movement it sees as an inconvenience" (San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 26).

Miss Lee, who has traveled to Darfur twice, says: "So many people have died that it's our duty to make sure pension funds don't have blood in their banks. It is the blood of genocide."

Even if this were only a "symbolic gesture," would divestment at least tell the world of the horrified concern by many Americans in these divesting states that day after day, the corpses mount in Darfur?

"We are already seeing a response from the Sudanese government. Last April, a press release from the Sudanese Embassy here urged institutions to stop divesting. And in a recent discussion with our campaign leader in Indiana -- (home of Sen. Richard Lugar, killer of the divestment section of the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act) -- divestment was the only topic the Sudanese ambassador was interested in addressing." [The parenthetical statement is from Hentoff, not from the original WP story. - EJM]

Miss Lee is not giving up. She has introduced a bill, the Darfur Accountability and Divestment Act (whose fate I will follow in a future column) that, she says, "would bar international companies, whose business in Sudan directly or indirectly supports the genocide in Darfur, from receiving taxpayer-funded federal contracts."

Meanwhile, on Oct. 9, Reuters reported attacks by the Sudan government's militia in Darfur that -- according to the U.N.'s High Commissioner for Human Rights -- were "massive in scale," possibly killing several hundred and also resulting in scores of missing children.

Do the National Foreign Trade Council lobbyists, so pleased with their "purifying" the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act, ever give a thought to the blood on the profits their clients reap from their business ventures in Sudan? Are they wholly oblivious to the mass murders and rapes -- and the slaughter of the very, very young?

When I was a kid, I couldn't imagine American companies doing business with Hitler. Growing up, I found that some did. So I'm not shocked now, just disgusted.

The summary expulsion of Jan Pronk, the United Nations’ envoy to Sudan, from that country this month [September], following remarks he made on the Darfur conflict, reflects the Khartoum government's unilateral and uncompromising stance towards any of its detractors.

The war in Darfur, Sudan’s westernmost province, between government-backed militias and anti-Khartoum rebels has garnered huge international attention and the International Criminal Court, ICC, in The Hague is investigating as many as 51 people for war crimes there and crimes against humanity at the request of the UN Security Council.

Sudan's National Islamic Front government, which harboured Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, has become increasingly thin-skinned about any mention of its battlefield reverses in Darfur, the “sin” committed by Pronk on his personal blog.

Pronk, 66, a former Dutch cabinet minister, has been UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special representative in Sudan for the past two years. He has been increasingly critical of the Sudanese authorities since violence increased in Darfur following a May peace accord between the government and one rebel faction, and Khartoum refused to allow UN peacekeepers in the region.

The three-year war in Darfur has killed and estimated 250,000 to 400,000 peasant people and forced some 2.5 million from their homes in what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir rejected a Security Council resolution in August calling for 21,000 soldiers and civilian police to deploy in Darfur to replace an under-funded and ineffective African Union peacekeeping force of 7,700 troops.

Pronk wrote on his personal website on October 14 that the Sudanese army had suffered two major defeats against Darfur rebels in the previous six weeks. "The morale in the government army in north Darfur has gone down," he said. "Some generals have been sacked; soldiers have refused fighting."

While the government willfully refuses to admit any culpability in Darfur and continues to insist that the war is essentially tribal, the conflict intensifies on an almost daily basis. Intervention by multilateral bodies to ensure an end to hostilities is imperative, although how this is to be achieved beyond torrents of words is unclear.

Relentless publicity, in which the media has a crucial role, is essential if decision makers are going to have the will and find the means to end what has been widely described as the 21st century's first genocide.

However, a scan of the host of media articles and academic analyses of Darfur reinforces a disturbing impression that the majority of them miss the myriad nuances that underpin a situation of increasingly hideous complexity. Most reports depict the conflict as a genocide or ethnic cleansing of Africans by Arabs, in much the same way that the separate war in southern Sudan was portrayed as a battle between evil Muslim northerners and hapless Christian southerners.

Such portrayals are only partly true. Few have bothered to note that in Sudan all the fighters are black and in Darfur not enough have made the point that all the combatants are Muslim.

This tendency to over-simplify and stereotype is dangerous. It perpetuates ideas such as the “clash of civilizations”, encourages deepening xenophobia and radicalisation, and detracts from sincere attempts at cross-cultural understanding. The widespread dissemination of misperceptions, as in the Darfur case, might actually impede peace negotiations.

For example, some parties involved in the Darfur peace negotiations in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, earlier in the year confirmed that media portraits of rebel groups as victims of genocide had contributed to grandiose demands by some of their leaders. The Sudanese government has also used the media reports to bolster their claim that they are being unjustly vilified, particularly when interacting with sympathisers in the Arab world.

A too rarely discussed element of the Darfur crisis is the sheer complexity of ethnic, cultural and tribal relations in the region and in Sudan generally. Darfur is home to between 40 and 150 tribes and sub-tribes, with the most influential being the Fur, Marsalit and Zaghawa.

Perhaps the most truly indigenous people of Darfur are the Fur, originally from the mountainous well-watered Jebel Marra that rises to more than 10,000 feet and divides arid northern Darfur from equally arid southern Darfur. Waves of migration over centuries have resulted in today’s Fur being an ethnic stew of various antecedents. Genetic linkages to the Hausa, Maba and Fulbe tribes of Nigeria point to migration from the west, while migrants and seasonal nomadic travellers from the east and north contributed other characteristics, both African and Arab. Today, everyone in Darfur is of African physiognomy and the terms “African” and “Arab” are largely notional.

In Darfur, the term Arab came down the centuries to be applied to pastoralists, since the first pastoralists in the region were nomads of Arab ethnicity. The designation Arab had negative connotations among the more settled agrarian Darfuris, originally of African descent, who used it to denote people who had no settled home. Arab herders who intermarried with the African landowners and settled into sedentary lifestyles could easily, even in the twentieth century, become Fur. Similarly, a Fur or Zaghawa farmer who bought cattle and moved his herd to new pastures every season would often adopt the term “Baggara”, the name by which cattle-herding Arabs are known in the area.

Consequently, for example, an outsider can easily find an African Zaghawa tribesman has paler skin and sharper features than the Rizeigat Arab standing next to him.

A genetic study of southern Darfur’s Fellata nomads, a sub-group of the Baggara Arabs, would reveal a mix of Arab characteristics from north-eastern ancestors and a substantial dose of West African markers. Although most Darfuris, especially pastoralists, have become linguistically Arabised, some still speak dialects closely related to Nigerian Fulbe.

Some Arab tribes, such as the Rizeigat and Beni Hussein, have resisted government blandishments and have either supported the African rebels or tried to remain neutral. Several pro-government militias still include members of the African Zaghawa tribe. Many Zaghawa were wooed by the government to fight in the separate southern Sudanese conflict and they were long regarded as allies by the Khartoum government. It was only in 2000 and 2001, when numerous Zaghawa villages were ransacked by government-backed Janjaweed militiamen, that Zaghawas began joining the rebels in large numbers.

Who then are the Janjaweed? The term is an aggregation of the Arabic words Jinn meaning evil spirit and Jawad meaning mounted rider (used for both horseman and camel-riders). So the Janjaweed are “evil spirits on horseback” who looted and ransacked settled villages in what was originally a series of tribal disputes between nomadic Arabs and settled African farmers over land and grazing rights.

Historically, northern nomads were allowed pasture and passage through African farmland along routes established centuries ago. But seasonal drought cycles and pressures of growing population forced pastoralists to impinge more and more on the land of their settled southern neighbours, and in turn forced farmers to fence off their land, triggering increasingly bitter disputes.

The situation progressively worsened and has been fanned by political manipulation both from successive Khartoum governments, as well as neighbouring Libyans and Chadians wanting to garner support for wars in Chad.

From 1968 onwards, Darfur was an important factor for any government wanting to win elections in Sudan, with the result that opposing political parties in Khartoum manipulated and exacerbated existing tensions between Darfuri Arabs and Africans. This was despite the fact that Khartoum’s “riverine” Arabs, along the Nile, regarded themselves as superior to all Darfuris, whether African or Arab, whom they referred to derogatorily as Awlad al-Gharb (progeny of the west [of Africa]). Once in power, following the withdrawal of British colonial rulers in 1956, Khartoum's political elites continued to marginalise Darfur and made little attempt to improve the poor social and economic conditions of the people there.

Libya’s President Gaddafi used Darfur as a base for supporting incursions into Chad at various times throughout the late twentieth century. The Libyans, with their notions of Arab supremacy, favoured Darfur’s Arabs and armed them to help support Chadian rebels. Tacit support from the Khartoum government for Libya's Machiavellian tactics deepened resentment of the Libyan and Chadian Arabs among Darfur Africans.

The forerunners of today’s notorious Janjaweed initially received their arms from Libya or from Chadian rebels.

The periodic clashes between nomads and farmers became increasingly violent with the increasing availability of weapons as a consequence of the Libya-Chad war, but only escalated into stark ethnic-based conflict in the final years of the last century and in this new century. By 2003, numerous Zaghawa had joined the Fur and other tribes who had formed self-defence units to protect their villages and families from marauding Janjaweed horsemen.

These anti-Khartoum rebels organised themselves into efficient guerrilla fighting units and began attacking government targets. Darfur’s Sudan Liberation Army, SLA, had been formed.

At the same time, a broad-based Islamist rebel movement arose in Darfur, with links to Hassan al-Turabi, a politician much feared by the current Khartoum government even though Turabi was formerly its spiritual leader. This Justice and Equality Movement, JEM, joined the SLA in joint attacks on government and police installations.

Khartoum, fighting a losing battle in the south against African non-Muslim rebels and bogged down in the peace negotiations from that decades-old conflict, reacted to SLA-JEM’s successful incursions through counter-insurgency by proxy. They armed and provisioned the Janjaweed, and supported them with air-strikes and backup army units. In many cases, Janjaweed were co-opted into the police and paramilitary structures such as the Popular Defence Forces. The burning and looting of villages, especially at harvest time, was intended by Khartoum to cut the rebels off from their civilian supporters and browbeat the “zurug” (an insulting term for “inferior Blacks”) into submission.

Khartoum did not factor in that the rebels would refuse to back down and that they and their supporters would become increasingly determined to end the marginalisation of Darfur, a vast region roughly the size of France. Nor did Khartoum comprehend that by encouraging the racialised and increasingly bloody atrocities of the Janjaweed it had created a Frankenstein monster over which it had little control.

Despite the spotlight of international media attention, and amid growing calls for the world to intervene in a situation that had deteriorated into an immense humanitarian disaster, the Khartoum government stubbornly continued sponsoring the Janjaweed, even at the height of the Darfur peace negotiations in Abuja. This seems to have been in the misguided belief that the rebel groups could still be obliterated or suppressed by increasing the firepower and mobility of the Janjaweed, many of whom are now mounted on 4x4 vehicles instead of horses or camels.

In 2005, a UN commission of inquiry, led by Italian judge Antonio Cassese, handed nine crateloads of its findings on Darfur to the ICC, together with a list of suspected perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Cassese reported in great detail on mass killings, rapes, torture and looting in Darfur. Subsequent reports from UN commissions have confirmed that the people of Darfur are, in the words of Annan, “living in hell”. With the spectre of prosecution for war crimes hanging over senior government figures, perhaps Khartoum's rulers reckoned they had nothing more to lose and therefore backed ever-more ferocious attacks on civilians, even those living in refugee camps, while steadfastly refusing to allow the entry of UN peacekeeping troops into Darfur.

Many of the rebels are also guilty of attacks on civilians, especially since the Abuja talks, where only one of three major rebel factions signed the May 2006 peace treaty, which has proved impossible to implement. The divided rebel groups are now pitted against each other in a deadly race to gain ground before any new peace talks, and each one is targeting communities perceived to be sympathetic to rival groups. The chaos has led to no-go zones, which humanitarian agencies cannot penetrate and a growing incidence of disease and starvation.

The subtleties contained in endless official international debates about the precise definition of words and phrases such as genocide and ethnic cleansing, coupled with the reluctance of world bodies to use such language, reflects the unwillingness of various nations to involve themselves in what has come to be seen as “another messy African war”. This contrasts sharply with the widespread media use of vivid reporting, featuring the voices of the oppressed, to stir international consciences and responses.

It is has become a mantra of increasing banality to say that Darfur's people need the world to act quickly and decisively to save them from their misery. Should some kind of action finally follow all the words, it will need to focus not only on ending the conflict but also on opening serious negotiations towards sustainable peace. In the face of Khartoum’s intransigence regarding UN troops, the global community should perhaps seize the slight opening provided by President Omar al-Bashir’s recent statement that more African Union peacekeepers would be welcomed. A trebling of the current 7,700 AU troops in the region, with better financial and equipment support, could be a badly needed first step towards ending the violence.

A second step would be a renewed peace process involving representatives of all parties to the conflict and community leaders able to articulate the needs and perspectives of the citizens of Darfur, the victims of this bloody war. Multilateral organisations also need neutral envoys who are able to create trust in all parties. They could capitalise on Khartoum's unexpected endorsement of the newly appointed United States Special Envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios. Sudan’s UN Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem said Natsios had "listened with understanding" to his arguments.

Any peace negotiation must promise sufficient rewards for all parties as incentives to maintain peace, but needs to also contain some form of enforceable sanctions against those who breach the peace.

Lastly, the work of the ICC must be facilitated in the long-term so that impunity at the highest levels does not go unpunished.

In northern Uganda, there’s hope for an eventual peace settlement between the [Lord's] Resistance Army and the government. For nearly 20 years, the government has devoted a large portion of its budget for the military. Today, the two antagonists have signed a truce and are working toward a permanent peace settlement. Observers say if that indeed comes to pass, the country could see vast improvements in its economy.

Peter Wamboga-Mugirya is a science and technology journalist in Kampala and a contributor to a number of publications, including the regional Farmers’ Voice and the London-based web [site], Science and Development Network.

Wamboga-Mugirya told VOA English to Africa Service reporter William Eagle that sectors like education, health and agriculture could rebound if permanent peace comes to Uganda. He says the north is a fertile plateau, a part of the Nile River valley, and a former contributor of cassava and of grains like maize, sorghum and millet. Wamboga-Mugirya says its cotton could contribute to the country’s textile industry, which has received an export boost with the US legislation called the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act. The north is also a large producer of oil seeds, like sunflower, sesame, groundnuts and soybeans. “So if we had (and end to) the war…we shall see this region bouncing back,” says Wamboga-Mugirya. “The press team (of the vice president of Uganda) told me that people are already growing crops (in the north) since there’s been relative peace.”

Northern Uganda also benefits by its proximity to southern Sudan, a mostly Christian and animist part of that country, which recently ended a war with the northern-based and predominantly Arab government in Khartoum. Wamboga-Mugirya says there’s a potential for a China-financed railway line between the northwestern town of Packwach in Uganda and Juba, Sudan.

“Remember,” he says,” that southern Sudan is three times bigger than Uganda but depends on Uganda for consumer goods like petroleum products and for sugar, salt and soap.” It also requires food stuffs, nurses and doctors. There’s a huge potential to supply Kenya and Tanzania through Uganda.

Nineteen years of war have taken their toll on thousands of people in northern Uganda. Children have lost their innocence to violence. Hundreds have been abducted and sexually abused. More than 1.5 million people have been displaced from their homes and put into camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs). With the signing of a peace truce recently, hope seems to increase. The government is encouraging people to return home. Yet, the question remains, after an absence of 20 years, is there still a home and land to return to?

The Ugandan government has announced a resettlement program for the IDPs but few are willing to return home. While security is currently the biggest problem, land troubles may escalate into a new conflict or a full-fledged war if not managed properly.

As IDPs return home, land is expected to be a major challenge. For many, it is likely the only economic resource left unscathed by the brutal war.

Ochula Opio, a resident of Layibi Village in Gulu, spoke about his concerns.

“There is nobody who would like any other fellow to be in his area so whoever will try to interfere or enter into ones land will cause a lot of chaos, where [it is] possible even death will occur. It is happening even right now and people have fought a lot about it,” he said.

There is concern that those who survived the 20-year war could face brutal fights regarding abandoned land. In the absence of land certificates, land titles, and officially surveyed land, it will be difficult for many people to identify where they once lived.

The Zimbabwean government has intensified its use of torture and arbitrary arrests to suppress opposition to President Robert Mugabe's 26-year rule, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released on Tuesday.

"When Zimbabweans engage in peaceful protest, the government responds with brutal repression," said Georgette Gagnon, deputy Africa director of the New York-based rights group and co-author of the new 28-page report.

"The authorities use torture, arbitrary arrest and detention to deter activists from engaging in their right to freely assemble and express their views."

Mugabe's government has often faced accusations by Western governments and other rights groups, such as Amnesty International, of oppressing its opponents. HRW said rights abuses were on the increase as the economic and political situation in the Southern African nation continued its downward spiral.

The report in particular highlighted the treatment of trade unionists who took part in a protest last month [September] whose organisers are now on trial.

"Riot police armed with batons stopped the march, asked the activists to sit down, and proceeded to beat them one at a time with batons before ordering them to leave," said the report.

A doctor, Reginald Machaba Hove, who examined some of those arrested told the report's authors that he was shocked by the extent of their injuries at the hands of the security services.

"I have never seen anything like this before. They were denied medical access for more than 24 hours. The beating was so callous and hard," he said.

The president of the Zimbabwe National Students' Union also detailed the treatment he received during one five-day stint in police detention in May.

"I was being beaten every night. Every night they would threaten me and say, 'We will kill you tonight.' Each night they would come and they would strip me naked and then handcuff me with my hands between my legs so that I would not be able to move while they beat me."

The government in Harare trashed the report, saying it was part of a campaign by the West to blemish Zimbabwe's image.

"They have been saying that for the past six years and as government we don't give a damn about it. It's a sponsored campaign against us."

Mugabe, in power since Zimbabwe's independence from Britain in 1980, has been unapologetic about the use of force against those who stage unauthorised demonstrations.

"When the police say move, move. If you don't move, you invite the police to use force," he said of September's union protests.

While it was one of the best-performing countries in Africa in the first decade after independence, Zimbabwe has since seen its inflation rate rocket to a world record high and about 80% of its people are unemployed.

The Human Rights Watch report says during the past year Zimbabwe's government stepped up its violent campaign against those who protest its social, economic, and human-rights policies.

The report says the government is intensifying efforts to intimidate, silence, and punish those who expose abuses and exercise basic rights.

The report notes [that] in the beginning of the Zimbabwean political crisis, veterans of Zimbabwe's independence war, members of the youth militia and ruling party supporters were to blame for the abuses. But now uniformed forces are the main culprits.

Human Rights Watch blames the government for taking no clear action to halt the rising incidence of torture and ill treatment of activists in the custody of police or the intelligence services.

President Mugabe recently said trade-union activists who were arrested while trying to organize a demonstration and then beaten in police custody got what they deserved. The Human Rights Watch report says the president's statements appear to condone acts of torture and other serious rights violations.

The report accuses the police of having arbitrarily arrested hundreds of activists during routine meetings or peaceful demonstrations, often with excessive force, and in some cases subjected those in custody to severe beatings that amounted to torture, and other mistreatment.

Information Minister Paul Mangwana dismissed the report, telling the French news agency, AFP, that there was nothing new in it. He called the report part of a six-year campaign against the Zimbabwe government. [see above]

The report is based on a Human Rights Watch research mission that visited Harare this month and last month. The mission interviewed 35 people, including victims of human-rights violations, medical experts, lawyers, human-rights activists, and foreign diplomats.

A report issued Tuesday by Human Rights Watch says the Zimbabwean government has intensified the use of repressive tactics against opponents in the past three years, including calculated police brutality against those protesting deteriorating conditions.

In the report, entitled "You Will Be Thoroughly Beaten," the New York-based advocacy organization details cases in which the police, army and other elements of Zimbabwe's state security apparatus allegedly used brutal force and violated the human rights of opposition supporters, civil activists, human rights lawyers and journalists.

The reports title is drawn from comments by President Robert Mugabe on Sept. 23 to Zimbabwean embassy staff in Cairo [...] in reference to the alleged severe beating administered to leaders of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions on Sept. 13.

State media quoted Mr. Mugabe as saying, "We cannot have a situation where people decide to sit in places not allowed and when police remove them they say no. We can’t have that. That is a revolt to the system. Some are crying that they were beaten. Yes you will be thoroughly beaten. When the police say move, you move."

Human Rights Watch says: "Violent repression of civil society activists by state authorities in Zimbabwe continues to escalate. Over the past year the government has reacted to a spate of nationwide protests against its policies on social, economic, and human rights conditions in the country by intensifying its efforts to intimidate, silence, and punish those who expose abuses and exercise their basic rights."

The report chargest that Zimbabwean police "have arbitrarily arrested hundreds of civil society activists during routine meetings or peaceful demonstrations, often with excessive force, and in some cases subjected those in custody to severe beatings that amounted to torture, and other mistreatment." It says lawyers and other human rights defenders "are themselves subjected to intimidation and harassment."

The organization called on Harare authorities to "end the use of arbitrary arrests and unlawful detentions; end the use of excessive force by the police; and immediately investigate all allegations of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment."

In reaction to a recent wave of protests against deteriorating social and economic conditions in the country, the Zimbabwean government has intensified its campaign to suppress peaceful dissent, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today [officially, Wednesday]. The 28-page report, “‘You Will Be Thoroughly Beaten’: The Brutal Suppression of Dissent in Zimbabwe,” reveals the repressive tactics that the government has used against civil society activists in the past year. Human Rights Watch has documented systematic abuses against activists, including excessive use of force by police during protests, arbitrary arrests and detention, and the use of torture and mistreatment by police and intelligence officials.

“When Zimbabweans engage in peaceful protest, the government responds with brutal repression,” said Georgette Gagnon, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities use torture, arbitrary arrest and detention to deter activists from engaging in their right to freely assemble and express their views.”

Political, social and economic conditions in Zimbabwe have deteriorated considerably in recent years. Civil society organizations have increasingly expressed concerns at the worsening conditions by engaging in peaceful protests and demonstrations. The government’s response has been heavy-handed and brutal. Police have violently disrupted peaceful protests by beating demonstrators with batons and in some cases rifle butts.

On September 25, for example, police violently disrupted a peaceful march by some 500 activists from the National Constitutional Assembly in Harare. Riot police armed with batons stopped the march, asked the activists to sit down, and proceeded to beat them one at a time with batons before ordering them to leave. During the beatings, a number of people panicked, which led to a stampede that injured about 24 people, seven of them seriously.

Police have also used laws such as the Public Order and Security Act and the Miscellaneous Offences Act to justify the arbitrary arrest and detention of hundreds of civil society activists around the country. After arrest, most of the activists are released within hours, but some are held for days, often without charge. Others are brought before the judicial authorities to answer charges that, in many cases, are dismissed by the courts.

Civil society activists who had been detained told Human Rights Watch that they were often held in overcrowded and filthy conditions, with human waste on the floor and blankets infested with lice. The activists have sometimes been denied legal counsel and access to food, water and needed medical assistance.

Human Rights Watch also documented acts of police torture and mistreatment of activists while in detention. Police have subjected detainees to severe beatings that involve punching, kicking and striking with batons, beatings on the soles of the feet, repeated banging of detainees’ heads against walls, and shackling in painful positions. Civil society activists told Human Rights Watch that police and intelligence officers interrogated them during these beatings, and then accused them of belonging to the opposition and trying to overthrow the government.

“During interrogation, they beat me with baton sticks, clenched fists and kept kicking me,” a student activist told Human Rights Watch. “I was being beaten every night. Every night they would threaten me and say, ‘We will kill you tonight.”

“Each night they would come and they would strip me naked and then handcuff me with my hands between my legs so that I would not be able to move while they beat me,” said the activist, who was detained for four days in May by police in the northeastern town of Bindura. “Sometimes they would be three people beating me, then two, or at times four. I was being accused of trying to facilitate regime change and working for the opposition.”

The report also highlights the brutal police assault of 15 trade unionists from the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions at Matapi police station in Harare on September 13 after they participated in peaceful demonstrations to protest poor working conditions and the deteriorating economic situation. At the police station, a group of five police officers took the unionists in pairs to a room and proceeded to beat them with batons, and punch and kick them. The beatings, which lasted for between 15 and 20 minutes, were so severe that a number of the trade unionists lost consciousness. They sustained serious injuries ranging from fractured limbs to extensive bruising, deep cuts to the head, and perforated eardrums.

“The police torture and mistreatment of civil society activists is not only deeply disturbing; it’s illegal under Zimbabwean as well as international law,” Gagnon said. “The government must immediately investigate these abuses and bring those responsible to justice.”

Police and intelligence officers also routinely target human rights lawyers and activists who try to expose abuses of human rights in an effort to prevent them from doing their work. The lawyers and activists are subjected to sustained harassment and intimidation in the form of verbal attacks in the state-run media, and death threats over the phone by people purporting to work for the government.

The Zimbabwean government has an obligation to respect basic freedoms and human rights under both domestic and international law. These rights include the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly, and the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

Human Rights Watch called upon the government of Zimbabwe to end the practice of arbitrary arrests and detentions, and to stop the use of excessive force by the police. The government should also investigate all allegations of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and bring the perpetrators to justice, Human Rights Watch said.

United Nations convoys bringing humanitarian assistance to war-torn South Darfur have come under attack by armed men in two separate incidents in recent days, a UN spokesperson said today [Tuesday].

A driver and two passengers suffered minor gunshot wounds when their truck was fired on yesterday [Monday] while travelling in South Darfur, according to information relayed from the UN Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS). The injuries were not life-threatening and they were being treated in El Geneina hospital.

Over the weekend, another convoy of three UN trucks en route to Zalingei from Nyala, was ambushed by a group of armed men but it was not immediately clear what injuries were sustained in the attack.

Meanwhile, in West Darfur, UNMIS said it has received reports that about 500 Arab militia members, riding horses and camels and supported with Land Cruisers mounted with machine-guns, carried out attacks in several areas there. The African Union Mission in Sudan will investigate reports, the spokesman’s office said.

The account Halima Sherif gave of her family’s ordeal was chillingly familiar in this part of the world. Arab men on horseback rode into her village, shouting racial epithets over the rat-tat-tat of Kalashnikov gunfire.

“They shouted ‘zurga,’” she said, an Arabic word for black that carries the connotation of a racial slur. “They told us they would take our land. They shot many people and burned our houses. We all ran away.”

Scenes like this one have been unfolding in the war-ravaged Darfur region of western Sudan for more than three years, and since the beginning of this year Sudanese Arabs have also been attacking Chadian villages just across Sudan’s porous border.

But the attacks on Djedidah and nine villages around it in early October took place not in Darfur, or even on Chad’s violent border with Sudan. It took place relatively deep inside Chad, about 60 miles from the border, a huge distance in a place with few roads, where most travel by horse, donkey or foot.

Beyond that, the attack was carried out not by Sudanese raiders from across the border but by Chadian Arabs, according to victims of the attack.

“They were our neighbors,” Ms. Sherif said, as she hurried to collect a few goats from the charred remains of her family compound. “We know them. They are Chadian.”

The violence in Darfur has been spilling over into Chad since at least early this year, when cross-border attacks by Sudanese bandits and militias chased more than 50,000 Chadians living in villages along the border from their homes.

But the violence around one of the other interior villages that was attacked, Kou Kou, is different and ominous, aid workers and analysts say. It appears to have been done by Chadian Arabs against non-Arab villages in Chad, and was apparently inspired by similar campaigns of violence by Sudanese Arab militias in Sudan. The villages are inhabited primarily by farmers from the Daju tribe.

“This is not a cross-border conflict — it is a local interethnic conflict,” said Musonda Shikinda, head of the United Nations refugee agency’s office in the area. “The perpetrators are their neighbors, not people from abroad.”

About 3,000 people have fled their homes because of the recent attacks, and about 100 have been killed, according to United Nations officials.

Accounts of the attacks from displaced people, most of them living in makeshift camps around Kou Kou, are strikingly similar to the accounts given by non-Arab Darfurian refugees of attacks on their villages by Darfur Arabs.

Yusuf Adif, a 29-year-old farmer from Djedidah, said he heard gunshots while tending his crops in early October. Mr. Adif was ready with a group of other village men to fight off the attackers.

Grabbing their traditional weapons — spears with hand-forged blades, bows with poison-tipped arrows — the men ran toward the gunfire. But they soon fled when they saw dozens of men on horseback with automatic rifles. Some wore white robes, like almost all Muslim men here do, while others wore khaki uniforms of a militia he could not identify, Mr. Adif said.

Abdel Karim Gamer, the sheik of Djimese, a nearby village, said that 20 people had been killed in the attack, among them women and children. Five women were abducted, he said, and he feared they had been raped, as so many women in Darfur have been.

“These are Arabs we know,” he said as he sat on a mat near the cobbled-together shelter where he and his family have been living for the past two weeks. “We trade with each other, depend on each other. We never had any problem in the past.”

Racial and ethnic identity are complex concepts in this region. The terms Arab and African or black are often used to signify the deep tribal divisions that have marked the conflict in Darfur.

Historically the racial divisions had been largely meaningless in the arid scrublands of Darfur and eastern Chad, but racial ideology, stirred up among landless nomadic Arabs in Darfur against non-Arab farmers the 1980s, laid the groundwork for the present grim conflict over land, resources and identity in Darfur.

The ethnic makeup of eastern Chad is similar to that of Darfur. The border between Chad and Sudan has little practical meaning for the villagers who live, trade and marry across the border, and whose families and tribes often span both Chad and Darfur.

The latest violence here raises fears that Darfur’s troubles could ignite a broader conflict between nomadic Arab tribes and mostly settled non-Arab tribes across this broad swath of the sub-Saharan region.

If the racial and ethnic conflict that has infected Darfur is being copied by Chad’s Arabs, then the violence spreading beyond Darfur’s borders could presage even further regional conflict, said David Buchbinder, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who specializes in Chad.

“The racial ideology is spreading, and that is very dangerous,” Mr. Buchbinder said.

Zachariah Ismael, who fled Ambash, one of the villages that was attacked, with his wife and six children, said of the conflict across the border, “Now it has come for us, too.”

He was building a bigger, sturdier shelter to replace the one he had constructed when they arrived two weeks earlier. His crop of maize and dura wheat would soon need to be harvested, but he despaired of being able to reach his fields, half a day’s walk away.

“I think we will be here for a long time,” he said. “We cannot go home.”

The government of the Central African Republic (CAR) has called on the international community to help it restore peace and order in its northern town of Birao. The town was captured by a rebel coalition calling itself the Union des Forces Démocratiques pour le Rassemblement on Monday.

Cyriaque Gonda, spokesman for President Francois Bozize, said the appeal had been made to the security councils of the UN and the African Union (AU), the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa, the Central African States Economic Community, France and other friendly organisations and countries.

In a statement broadcast on national radio on Monday, Gonda said the government suspected that the attackers who captured Birao came from neighbouring Sudan. Birao is a town of at least 30,000 inhabitants near the border between the two countries.

"We are not accusing Sudan of attacking the CAR, but we are wondering why such an attack may have come from a neighbouring and friendly country," Gonda said.

The Sudanese ambassador in the CAR capital, Bangui, could not be reached for comment on the allegation.

Birao lies on the major trade routes to Chad and Sudan. It is vital to the region’s commerce and is essential for the delivery of social services. Accessing the town from Bangui is only possible by air after the road network in the north was damaged after of several years of civil war.

Gonda appealed to the UN to implement the Security Council's Resolution 1706 on the deployment of UN troops to the border between CAR and Sudan to restore security.

The rebel group - believed to comprise three factions opposed to Bozize's leadership - attacked government soldiers stationed at Birao and captured the town.

"Many people, including soldiers and civilians, died as the result of the attack," Gonda said.

He added that serious damage to property also occurred during Monday's attack.

However, in a telephone interview on Tuesday, the spokesman of the rebel coalition, Abakar Saboune, said the group had no connection to Sudan. It is thought the coalition is mostly made up of former mercenaries and fighters who supported Bozize during his 2002-2003 rebellion, which led to him taking power in March 2003 from President Ange-Felix Patasse.

"We are operating from our territory and we have been controlling the northeast end since we arrived in Tiringulu in April this year," Saboune said.

Tiringilu is a small town in the Vakaga Prefecture, close to Birao.

"We are in full control of the town of Birao and its surroundings," he said. "We only attacked loyal troops and I can swear that no civilian died in the attack."

Two rebels died and two others were wounded during the fighting for control of Birao, he said. Saboune claimed they killed 13 government soldiers, captured 10, and that 14 others had joined the coalition. Those who fled into the bush have asked to join the rebels, he said.

He added that the coalition would remain in Birao while planning to advance on the capital, Bangui.

The government's accusation against Sudan complicates further the relations between the two countries. The CAR closed its border with Sudan in April after Chadian rebels coming from Sudan crossed its border to attack N'djamena, the Chadian capital. The CAR rebels allegedly helped their Chadian counterparts to attack N'djamena, hoping to get weapons in return for their support.

The latest attack on Birao occurred while Bozize and his prime minister were out of the country. Military officials said reinforcements had been sent to Birao.

Gonda claimed the armed attackers came from Sudan's Darfur region. A lieutenant in the CAR army, who declined to be named, said the attackers, numbering at least 300 men, were militarily well-equipped.

There are several armed groups operating near Birao. In April, aeroplanes, as yet still unidentified, landed in the Tiringulu to offload military equipment and personnel. Military officials in Bangui acknowledged that the armed men dropped into the region were still operating there.

In June, a rebel attack on an army position in Gordil, an area near Birao, left 13 soldiers dead.

The capture of Birao is a clear sign that rebel activity has reemerged in the country since Bozize took power. The town has an airport could be used to supply the rebels.

A spokesman for shadowy rebels in Central African Republic denied his fighters have bases in Sudan and vowed to oust the president of this volatile nation in the heart of Africa.

Government spokesman Cyriaque Gonda said Monday that armed fighters based in Sudan's troubled Darfur region crossed into Central African Republic a day earlier and attacked the northern town of Birao in fighting that killed both civilians and army troops.

Contacted by telephone from Birao, rebel spokesman Abakar Saboune confirmed his fighters assaulted the town and claimed they now control it.

It was not possible, however, to independently confirm the claim, though an army lieutenant citing a government security report has also said rebels seized the town.

"We are in full control of the town of Birao and its surroundings," Saboune said, adding that rebels planned to use Birao as a base to push toward the capital, Bangui, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) to the southwest.

Saboune said his fighters were not operating in Sudan and were not receiving help from any groups or the government there.

Gonda told The Associated Press his government was "not accusing Sudan of attacking the CAR, but we wonder why rebels groups may so easily come from a neighboring and friendly country like Sudan."

Following an attack by Chadian rebels on Chad's capital in April, Bangui briefly closed its border with Sudan amid reports that Chadian rebels had used Central African Republic territory to carry the attacks.

Central African Republic has suffered decades of army revolts, coups and rebellions since the nation gained independence from France in 1960.

Little is known about the rebels. Unidentified armed groups have launched sporadic attacks on military installations in remote regions of the Central African Republic over the past year, displacing tens of thousands of refugees.

Saboune said his fighters had been in Central African Republic since April, when they entered from a neighboring country he declined to name. Central African Republic has borders with Sudan, Chad, [DR] Congo, Republic of Congo and Cameroon.

Saboune was once a well-known army captain who served with rebels led by President Francois Bozize, who swept to power in a bush war that culminated with a rebel assault on Bangui in 2003.

Bozize's forces ousted former President Ange-Felix Patasse, and Bozize later held elections and won the presidency in May 2005.

Saboune said rebels took up arms because Bozize's government was allegedly no better than that of Patasse.

"When we were fighting alongside Francois Bozize, we were expecting him to bring true change to the Central African Republic. But nepotism, corruption, mismanagement of public funds ... are still there," Saboune said. "We cannot accept it anymore."

Saboune also alleged top government jobs had gone to members of Bozize's Baya ethnic group, which makes up about 40 percent of the country's 3.6 million people and dozens of ethnic groups.

"We were the ones who brought Bozize to power," Saboune said. "Since he is misbehaving, we decided to go to the bush and form another rebellion to come and overthrow him."

Saboune claimed 13 government soldiers died in Sunday's fighting, along with two rebels. The government has given no casualty figures, and Gonda said only that some civilians and government forces had been killed.

Some 14 soldiers at the Birao military barracks helped the rebels organize the attack and defected to the rebel side, Saboune said, adding that 10 other government troops were captured. The government has not commented on the claim.

Rebels claim to have captured a town in the far north-east of the Central African Republic (CAR).

A force of around 150 rebels took the town of Birao, which is close to the border with Sudan and Chad.

The rebels from the UFR movement say some government troops joined them, and others were taken prisoner.

In April this year an Antonov plane, carrying rebels, landed in the same location. The CAR government accused Sudan of being behind that attack.

Observers say the town, which is in a remote and swampy location, has been used by rebels as a base to attack the government.

"We took control of Birao early this [Monday] morning at 4:00 am [0300 GMT]. There was brief fighting," Abakar Sabone, who called himself a UFR captain, told the AFP news agency by telephone. [see below]

Security in the north has deteriorated in the past year, due to an increase in robberies and the emergence of rebels seeking to overthrow President Francois Bozize.

The town is also close to Chad and Darfur which have witnessed violence and insecurity in recent years.

Central African Republic on Friday asked France and regional African allies for military assistance to expel rebels who occupied a northeastern town after crossing from Sudan, the presidency said on Tuesday.

Officials in the landlocked former French colony, one of the poorest nations on earth, said the armed group on Monday stormed Birao, more than 800 km (500 miles) northeast of the capital Bangui, after advancing from Am Dafok on the Sudanese border.

The attack appeared to mark a spillover south into Central African Republic of the political and ethnic conflict which has raged in Sudan's western Darfur region since 2003. The same conflict has also pushed refugees and rebels into Chad.

President Francois Bozize's government protested to neighbour Sudan about the attack, demanding an explanation, and it also appealed to the international community for help.

A coalition of anti-Bozize rebels calling itself the UFDR, whose name in French means Union of Democratic Forces for Unity, claimed the capture of Birao, the largest town in the northeast.

A UFDR spokesman, Capt. Abakar Sabone, accused Bozize of "holding the country hostage" and demanded he start talks about power sharing.

He said a similar request was also made to the six-nation Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC), to which the Central African Republic belongs. The other members are Chad, Cameroon, Congo Republic, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.

France has a military contingent stationed in neighbouring Chad, including a squadron of Mirage jets, and early this year sent military helicopters to Central African Republic to back a border protection agreement with Sudan and Chad.

"Already heavily involved in stabilising the (President Idriss) Deby regime in Chad, France has a vested interest in stabilising Bozize's regime as a democratically elected Deby ally," Adrien Feniou, an analyst with Global Insight, wrote in a note on Tuesday about the Birao attack.

DARFUR LINK

In Paris, the French government expressed its support for Bozize's administration.

"These events demonstrate once again the importance of including the Central African Republic in any thinking about solving the crisis in Darfur," French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said.

Gonda said Central African Republic's Prime Minister Elie Dote had on Monday asked the U.N. Security Council in New York to deploy U.N. peacekeeping troops in the Chad-Central African Republic-Sudan border area to guarantee security.

Khartoum is refusing to accept the deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur.

The rebel raiders, who were well-armed, were concentrated around Birao's airfield, Gonda said, adding that civilians had died in Monday's attack, though he could not say how many.

But he dismissed the rebels' threat to advance on the capital. "Bangui is secure, they're far off," he said.

Central African Republic's remote north is a lawless area where armed raiders regularly loot villages and terrorise civilians, sending many fleeing into southern Chad.

Rebel spokesman Sabone said many of the UDFR fighters had previously fought with Bozize, who seized power in March 2003. He then held and won elections in 2005.

The Central African Republic (CAR) accused neighbouring Sudan of "barbarous aggression" Monday after a recently formed rebel group captured the northern city of Birao, near the Sudanese border.

[Presidential] spokesman Cyriaque Gonda said on national radio that "unidentified assailants" from the western Sudanese region of Darfur had carried out the attack.

"The government and the Central African people ... strongly condemn this barbarous aggression which cannot be justified," he said.

Gonda said Sudan was responsible for "repeated violations" of the border and called on the international community to help restore the "territorial integrity" of CAR by sending UN peacekeepers to Darfur.

A small rebel group called the Union of Rallied Forces (UFR), which appeared in the north of CAR in 2005, claimed to have taken Birao after "brief fighting".

Headed by Florian Ndjadder-Bedaya, the son of a late general who was close to former president Ange-Felix Patasse, the group said CAR troops either defected or were captured.

Ndjadder-Bedaya announced in December his intention to overthrow CAR's current head of state, Francois Bozize, who ousted Patasse in 2003.

Birao is over 800 kilometres (500 miles) northeast of Bangui, in an area infested with criminal gangs and rebel groups hostile to the CAR leadership.

The rebels' success in the area comes after troop reinforcements were sent to the north earlier this month to protect civilians from bandits and forestall rebel activity.

CAR is one of Africa's poorest nations and has long been unstable, but insecurity has grown over the past year.

"We took control of Birao early this morning at 4:00 am (0300 GMT). There was brief fighting," said Abakar Sabone, who called himself a UFR captain.

"Numerous FACA elements based at Birao joined our forces and others were taken prisoner," he told AFP by satellite phone, without giving any further details.

A CAR military source did not confirm the rebel claims, stating he could not say whether they were "Central African rebels or if the assailants came from a neighbouring country".

A senior army officer confirmed that government troops in the Birao region had been "routed" and said the assailants had seized military vehicles and taken hostage Birao's deputy administrator.

"There were losses of life among the FACA," a military source said without giving a death toll. "All we know is they went around Am-Dafock to attack Birao," he said.

Earlier reports indicated Chadian rebels may have been behind the attack. Birao is close to a region in Chad where intense fighting has occurred between the army and rebels from the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD).

New fighting broke out Sunday in the far east of Chad between government forces and UFDD rebels, who the Chad government accuses of being "mercenaries working for Sudan".

The UFDD, an alliance of previously competing rebel groups, launched an offensive on October 22 against the Chadian government of President Idriss Deby Itno, briefly occupying two towns near the Sudanese border before pulling back.

Chad and to a lesser degree CAR are home to tens of thousands of refugees from the fighting in Darfur, where at least 200,000 people have died as a result of fighting, famine and disease since 2003.

The Sudanese government has accused Chad of giving refuge to Darfur rebels but denies any involvement in militia attacks inside neighbouring countries.

Khartoum has vehemently rejected an August UN Security Council resolution calling for the deployment of up to 20,000 UN peacekeepers to stem the violence in Darfur.

The Sudanese government denied Tuesday that the Darfur Peace Agreement was dead and rejected claims of genocide, insisting it was "doing fine" in the region. It had refused to allow UN peacekeepers into Darfur because the UN resolution was "one-sided", "imbalanced" and risked bringing about "more conflict", Sudanese Minister for Culture Mohammed Yousif Abdalla told a Geneva press conference.

The resolution was being imposed on Sudan by UN officials who "behaved as if Sudan is under UN trusteeship," he said. Most of Darfur was peaceful at present - "generally, the situation in Darfur is far better than before."

"If the peace process is strengthened, within the year we could see things returning to normal," he added.

The African Union mission, which has been policing the region, should continue with better resources, he said.

He denied that the government was increasingly looking for a military solution to quell rebel groups outside the peace accords.

However the UN aid agencies say insecurity remains a huge problem.

"Security makes our life and the life of other humanitarian agencies very difficult in Darfur. Sometimes we just cannot reach the areas where ID (internally displaced) people are," said Jennifer Pagonis of the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR.

U.N. aid workers fear their precarious access to the suffering people in Darfur could get even worse, officials said Tuesday, despite a top Sudanese official saying most parts of the region were secure.

"Our biggest concern right now is that our hard-won gains could be easily lost if the situation continues," said Michael Bociurkiw of the U.N. Children’s Fund.

The situation is "extremely difficult" for aid workers and "insecurity often prevents us from being able to access people," said Simon Pluess, a spokesman for the World Food Program. He said aid workers had been unable to get access to some 350,000 people in northern Darfur during September.

He said 14 of Darfur’s 23 provinces were peaceful, with the south and west calmer than the north.

"We believe the security in Darfur is OK," he said.

Pluess told reporters that aid workers and the local population were constantly exposed to security threats, banditry and other criminal acts.

"The biggest victims are the civilians, the displaced, in Darfur who suffer almost on a daily basis from violations and attacks," Pluess added.

Abdullah, who was in Geneva to attend a cultural week organized by the Sudanese community, visited the U.N.’s European headquarters to talk to reporters. He conceded there was a problem if people were driven from their homes, but he said the main indicators of well-being - mortality and malnutrition rates, as well as the amount of clean water provided to the population - show the situation was normal.

"Mortality rates are below the threshold of an emergency situation," he said. The rate of access to clean water was "up to 65% in certain areas, which is the normal level of the capital of Sudan," he added. "And we believe this is a big success for all of us in the humanitarian process."

These indicators don’t take into account sexual violence against women and children, the minister said when asked about widespread reported rapes of civilians.

Jennifer Pagonis, of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said violence and insecurity were severely hampering the aid workers’ job.

"We have reduced access," she said. "Sometimes we just simply can’t get out to (displacement) camps because of security constraints."

She added the agency’s assessment of the humanitarian situation in Darfur wouldn’t "tally with that of the Sudanese minister."

"It’s very, very difficult for us," Pagonis said.

Violence has risen dramatically in recent weeks in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have fled their homes in more than three years of fighting. The latest upsurge in fighting has caused increasing numbers of aid workers to withdraw, leaving many refugees without food or medicine.

The U.N. has authorized 20,000 troops to replace an under-equipped force of 7,000 African Union peacekeepers in Darfur. But the Sudanese government has rejected the U.N. force, and last week expelled the U.N.’s Sudan envoy, Jan Pronk.

A stronger African Union force in Darfur could help consolidate peace within a year and allow 2.5 million refugees to return home, a Sudanese minister said on Tuesday.

But deploying U.N. peacekeepers would "exacerbate the situation" in the region, said Mohamed Yusif Abdallah, minister for culture, youth and sports, who helped negotiate a peace deal signed in May by one rebel group and the Sudanese government.

Sudan rejects a U.N. Security Council resolution to send more than 20,000 U.N. troops to Darfur to replace a 7,000-strong AU force which has been unable to contain violence and prevent what the United Nations says is a deepening humanitarian crisis.

The only problem with the AU operation, which is due to wind up at the end of the year, was that it lacked resources, Abdallah told a news conference.

"We believe if the peace process is strengthened, within a year things would get completely normal and people would go back to their original places," he said.

"(But) an attempt to bring in the U.N. forces which is not agreed upon by the parties in Darfur will exacerbate the situation," he added.

Sudanese officials have said a U.N presence in Darfur would amount to an invasion by the West.

The Sudanese government last week expelled the top U.N. envoy for Sudan Jan Pronk, who accused Khartoum of violating the Abuja accord with renewed aeriel bombing and by mobilising militias accused of atrocities.

Abdallah said Pronk had a "one-sided and imbalanced view".

"In general, the situation in Darfur is far better than before," he said.

But in Geneva, U.N. humanitarian agencies said they faced immense difficulties in getting assistance to those in need in the western Sudan area, which is the size of France.

"I do not think our assessment would tally with that of the Sudanese minister," Jennifer Pagonis, a spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR), told journalists when asked to comment on his remarks.

More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes to live in camps in Sudan and across he border in Chad since the start of fighting in Darfur in 2003.

The conflict has pitted mostly non-Arab rebels against the Arab-dominated government and Janjaweed militia. All sides have been accused of grave human rights violations.

One of Sudan's top peace negotiators said Tuesday that the government was maintaining talks behind the scenes with dissident rebel groups in Darfur that had not signed up to the Abuja peace agreement.

"We are discussing with them, we never stopped. Since we departed from Abuja, discussions are there with those who have not signed," Sudanese Culture and Tourism Minister Mohamed Yusif Abdallah told reporters.

In May, the Sudanese government and the largest Darfur rebel faction signed a peace agreement in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.

But the deal brokered by the African Union was rejected by other rebel factions and has failed to make much impact on the ground.

"They have sent their representatives to us, and some of their commanders in the field are also discussing with the government," Abdallah added.

He said the the government was not seeking a military solution to the conflict in Darfur.

"We feel that ending the problem in Darfur is far better than pursuing a military objective or military goal. The military goal is not an objective for us, we feel that it's more important for us to pursue dialogue than confrontation," Abdallah said.

Abdallah maintained Sudan's rejection of a UN peacekeeping force, favouring an extension for the current African Union monitors instead, and insisted the situation in Darfur was generally "far better than before".

Darfur erupted into civil war in early 2003 when the two main rebel groups rebelled against the Khartoum government seeking regional autonomy, drawing a scorched earth response from the military and its Janjaweed militia allies.

At least 200,000 people have died in the region and more than two million people have fled their homes.

The Sudanese Minister of Culture says the humanitarian situation in conflict-ridden Darfur is not as serious as it is usually painted in the media or by the United Nations. But U.N. aid agencies say they are not backing off from their grim assessment of conditions for civilians in Darfur.

For example, he notes infant and crude mortality rates are below the emergency level as set by the World Health Organization.

"This is a great success," he said. "The malnutrition rates also remain below the normal. In certain places, the malnutrition rates are higher in some parts of the Sudan, than in Darfur. Also, the area of providing clean water to the affected population in the camps was up 70 [percent] in certain areas and up to 65 percent in certain areas, which is the normal level of the capital of Sudan, of Khartoum."

The Sudanese minister says the situation is calm and peaceful in most of Darfur's 23 provinces and people there are leading normal lives. He says northern Darfur is the worst affected area.

Allah repeats his government's position that a U.N. peacekeeping force is both unnecessary and unacceptable. He says the African Union force is doing a good job in protecting security and should remain.

"We feel that African Union is doing fine and will continue to do well. The only problem it has is the resources. And we believe that the resources that could be provided for the U.N. peacekeeping forces should be provided for the African Union to carry out its activities," he said.

The World Food Program and [the] U.N. Children's Fund [UNICEF] have been providing humanitarian assistance to more than two million displaced people since the start of the Darfur conflict in 2003. They agree that aid agencies have managed to improve the nutritional situation of many of these people during the past two years.

But, WFP spokesman Simon Pluess, says it is extremely difficult for humanitarian agencies to work in Darfur.

He says some places are totally inaccessible.

"There were people who actually could not be served with food for about three months. So, you can imagine what this has as an impact on the nutritional situation of these people. So, the situation is far from being great," he said.

U.N. Human Rights spokesman, Jose Diaz, says reports by his office show the situation in Darfur is pretty awful and getting worse.

He said, "The situation where you have more than two million people displaced, where you have ongoing attacks against civilians, where you have women being raped and sexually assaulted regularly, where there is almost a generalized climate of impunity in relation to these human-rights violations, I think that speaks of a pretty dire situation."

Diaz says the African Union forces are doing a good job within their limited means, but he says a larger U.N. peacekeeping force should be sent to Darfur.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair told one of Sudan's vice presidents Tuesday that his country faces international isolation if fails to make immediate progress toward a renewed peace deal for Darfur.

Blair told Salva Kiir Mayardit, Sudan's first vice president, that the Khartoum government had one last chance to move toward ending the conflict — or will face the consequences, the prime minister's official spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity.

Kiir, a former leader of Sudan's southern rebels, has publicly disagreed with Sudanese President Omar al Bashir over Bashir's refusal to accept United Nations peacekeepers, one of the conditions the British government said Sudan must accept.

Earlier this month, Blair urged fellow European leaders to exert "maximum pressure" on Khartoum to ease fighting in the violence-wracked region, where a 3-year-old war has left some 200,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Sudan's government is accused of unleashing brutal militiamen known as janjaweed in the remote western region.

The U.N. has authorized 20,000 troops to replace an under-equipped force of 7,000 African Union peacekeepers in Darfur. But the Sudanese government has rejected the U.N. force, and last week expelled the U.N.'s Sudan envoy, Jan Pronk.

Blair's official spokesman refused to clarify what sort of isolation Sudan faced, but added that the Sudanese government was in no doubt about the seriousness of the threat as the crisis reaches "a crunch period."

"The important thing is we give President Bashir one final chance to agree a deal or face the consequences of increased isolation," he said. "I think the Sudanese government is in no doubt about what we mean; sometimes it's better not to spell out threats but deliver private messages."

Sudan does not have long to consider its response to Britain's demands, the spokesman said. "I think there must be clear progress" before an African Union meeting Nov. 24.

"We are talking about a relatively short period of time," he said.

Blair will discuss the issue with U.S. President George W. Bush and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, as well as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom he is to meet Friday in London.

Kiir, in Britain for several days, was to meet later Tuesday with International Development Secretary Hilary Benn, who visited Darfur earlier this month.

Tony Blair has urged the Sudanese government to allow UN peacekeepers into the bloody region of Darfur, warning they face "isolation" otherwise.

For the past three years the area has been controlled by the Janjaweed militia group, who have committed horrendous atrocities on the local people.

The Sudanese government, which international aid agencies say backs the Janjaweed, has allowed an ill-equipped African Union force into the region.

Meeting General Salva Kiir Mayadit, [first] vice president of Sudan and president of Southern Sudan, Mr Blair argued that the force should be backed by up to 20,000 blue-helmeted peacekeepers from the UN.

"What's important at the moment is that the Sudanese government be in no doubt at all about our seriousness," the PM's official spokesman said afterwards.

"What I think is clear is that they personally and as a government face isolation if they do not respond to the will of the international community."

The Sudanese government has previously warned it would regard any UN force on its soil as an invasion and last week expelled a UN envoy.

The war is estimated to have cost anything from 50,000 to 450,000 lives, and made 2.5 million homeless. However, the UN refuses to brand the violence "genocide".

Mr Blair warned fellow European leaders earlier this month that it was vital to bring the escalating crisis to "crunch point" and put "maximum pressure" on the regime in Khartoum.

"It is very important to put maximum pressure on the Sudanese government to allow a peacekeeping force in, and to halt violent action and to avoid more lives lost and hundreds of thousands being displaced from their homes," he said at the time.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned Sudan on Tuesday it was nearing the "crunch point" for Khartoum to enforce the peace in Darfur or risk isolation and unspecified action by the international community.

Blair met Sudanese [First] Vice President Salva Kiir in London and told him "everyone must stop fighting and resume dialogue with the people who did not sign up to the peace agreement," Blair's spokesman told reporters.

"We are reaching the crunch point. It's important that the Sudanese government be in no doubt at all of our seriousness," he said at a briefing about the two leaders' talks.

Blair told Kiir there must be "clear progress" by Nov. 24 when African Union leaders meet to discuss Darfur.

More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes to live in camps in Sudan and across the border in Chad since the start of fighting in Darfur in 2003.

The conflict has pitted mostly non-Arab rebels against the Arab-dominated government and Janjaweed militia. All sides have been accused of grave human rights violations.

A shaky peace agreement was signed in May by only one of the Darfur rebel factions and the government.

Since then, tension has been rising between Khartoum and the West over a U.S.-British backed U.N. Security Council resolution that calls for the dispatch of 22,500 U.N. troops and police to Darfur.

Khartoum has rejected the deployment of a U.N. force, saying it is an attempt at recolonisation by Western powers and says AU forces alone should have the job of patrolling Darfur. But the 7,000 AU forces in Darfur have been unable to halt the violence.

"The Sudanese government know they face isolation if they do not respond to the will of the international community," Blair's spokesman told reporters, but would not be drawn on what that would mean in practice.

"It would be better to let the Sudanese government absorb the message before we talk in public about that," he said, adding "private messages" were better than public threats at this stage.

Foreign Office minister Kim Howells told Parliament Britain was working to bring "unified pressure" from around the world to bear on the Sudanese government.

"Ministers and senior officials are engaging international partners to ensure that there is a unified pressure on the Sudanese government to accept the U.N. force and agree to a ceasefire and commit to a renewed political settlement with the rebels," Howells said.

He said Darfur was a test for the United Nations, still grappling with its conscience after failing to act to prevent massacres in the central African nation of Rwanda and in Bosnia.

"The world needs from the United Nations an example of how it can act in very difficult circumstances to rescue huge numbers of people from the most dreadful fate that they're suffering at the moment," Howells said.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned Sudan on Tuesday that it faces a "crunch point" and will be internationally isolated if it fails to act over Darfur within weeks, his spokesman said.

Blair held talks with Sudanese [First] Vice-President General Salva Kiir Mayardit as the country faces strong international pressure to replace the African Union force in Darfur with up to 20,000 United Nations peacekeepers.

President Omar al-Beshir has rejected the plan, claiming it is a United States-led plot to invade the country.

"The important thing is that we give President Beshir one final chance to move to agree a deal or face the consequences of increasing isolation and we're facing that crunch point," Blair's official spokesman said.

"What's important is that the Sudanese government has no doubt about the seriousness of that message."

Sudan faces "isolation if they don't respond to the will of the international community", he added, saying that Blair wanted to see "clear progress" ahead of a meeting of the African Union in late November.

Darfur erupted into civil war in early 2003 when the two main rebel groups rejected the Khartoum government's plans for regional autonomy, drawing a scorched earth response from the military and its Janjaweed militia allies.

At least 200,000 people have died in the region and more than two million people have fled their homes.